


Of One's Own

by Eglantine



Series: Joly&Bossuet&Musichetta [2]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Canon Era, F/M, I have come to sleep with you, M/M, Multi, Unrelenting Silliness, and now there's a threesome, being a bad influence, fade-to-black, getting drunk on the floor, long-delayed gratification, roundabout confessions of love, unabashed gossip and speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-04
Updated: 2015-02-04
Packaged: 2018-03-05 09:27:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3114869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eglantine/pseuds/Eglantine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I suspect you have grown weary of being thought of as one half of a whole."</p><p>Part One: Bossuet moves out.<br/>Part Two: Musichetta joins in.<br/>Part Three: Joly asks around.<br/>Part Four: It all comes together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Seriously this has been way too long coming. In roughly the same imaginative universe as "Eagle and His Wings" and "A New Year," for anyone who is interested.

In the summertime, new vistas presented themselves. Those new vistas came in the form, of course, of tiny, cramped garrets on top floors, sometimes with funny sloped (usually leaky) roofs so that you could only stand up straight in the center of the room, and almost certainly without a stove. But these were not problems in the Parisian summer—or at least they were smaller problems than they were in winter— and so it was generally in the summertime that Bossuet found he could afford to have a room of his own. 

“Well,” Courfeyrac said, hunched over slightly (for he had politely ceded the center of the room, where the ceiling was highest, to Combeferre, as he was the tallest present). “Your height comes in handy at last. Now if only you could find a similar use for your baldness, I’d say your luck has turned.”

Even short and stocky Bossuet had to stoop at the far edges of the room, but he still grinned. “Well, I do live in hope of that. I haven’t quite managed to polish it to a sufficient sheen to serve as a human looking-glass, but I do persevere.” 

“Did Joly ask you to move out?” Combeferre asked, which Bossuet interpreted as his gentle way of asking why on earth Bossuet would intentionally leave a perfectly nice flat in the Latin Quarter for— well, this. 

“No, no,” he said. “Our Jolllly’s patience with me continues boundless—but just as I pay my tabs at the cafes when I can, I like to strike out on my own when I have the means.”

“It is a rather more interesting neighborhood,” Courfeyrac said thoughtfully, peeking out the small window with its dirty glass. “Politically speaking, that is. It could be useful, being so near to the Hôtel de Ville. Perhaps I shall follow your example.” 

“Oh, I do love to set fashions,” Bossuet said. “Dare I hope you shall be the next to usher in the use of worn-through elbows for formal wear? I’ve been trying for years, but it just won’t stick.” 

“Not on your life,” Courfeyrac said instantly. “But I have convinced the others that this is really the only place anyone who’s anyone is seen of a Thursday night, so I hope your servants are all prepared for a terribly grand housewarming party.” 

“Grand, and perhaps a bit—hunched.” Combeferre glanced uncertainly up at the ceiling, which was mere inches from his nose. “Perhaps we shall bring sitting on the floor into fashion, too.”

*

They did sit on the floor. They drank on the floor, too, and everyone tipsily banged his head on the ceiling at least once. 

“Really, Courfeyrac,” Jean Prouvaire complained once they’d finished the first two bottles of wine. “This is intolerable. You said _everyone_ would be here.”

“We couldn’t fit anyone else if we wanted to!” Courfeyrac protested. “Anyhow, who’s missing?”

“Feuilly—”

“Has to work early.”

“Enjolras—”

“Ha!” 

“Your friend Pontmery—”

“ _Ha!_ ”

“Joly!” 

This brought Courfeyrac up short. “Oh. Yes of course. I supposed I’d just sort of—assumed he was here, since you are,” he said, looking to Bossuet. 

“Well, no more. I’ve a flat of my own now,” Bossuet said loftily. “I am a solitary eagle once again. You must account for Joly and I separately. I realize this shall greatly task your mathematical skills, but I have faith in you, my dear friend.” 

“Where is he, though?” Courfeyrac asked.

“He’s convinced he has diphtheria,” Combeferre said dryly. “I tried to tell him that it’s nothing, but he would hear none of it and scurried off as soon as our lecture was finished. Considering how often he looks at his tongue, you’d think he would surely notice that he was not displaying the customary membranous—”

“Ugh, nothing of membranes, please,” Courfeyrac said, making a face. “Combeferre is plainly drunk, gentlemen. He has brought up membranes. I can’t quite decide if this means we must adjourn at once, before all descends into chaos, or press on.” 

“Press on!” Bahorel cried. “By all means!” 

So they did.

*

“It’s to do with Musichetta, isn’t it,” Jean Prouvaire said in what he probably thought was a whisper. But by that point, everyone was quite drunk indeed and didn’t notice Jehan’s failed attempts at secrecy at all.

“What is?” Bossuet asked placidly. He tended to get contemplative rather than boisterous when he’d been drinking, but he’d been quite contentedly observing the antics of the others when Jehan had taken a seat next to him and attempted to whisper.

“Your moving _out_ ,” Jehan said. 

“Oh! No, not at all,” Bossuet replied. “She rather likes me, I think, and anyway she insists that she won’t give up her flat, no matter how often Joly begs her to move in. No, I don’t know why everyone is so convinced that there is some grand conspiracy at work here. The only conspiracy is between my finances and the weather, uniting at last to permit me to live here without freezing to death.” 

“I don’t believe you,” Jehan said stubbornly. “You are best friends, you like living together—”

“Well of course we do. But everyone likes the chance to be alone as well.”

“Not everyone,” Jehan replied. “I would believe that of Enjolras, of Combeferre, of myself— even of Bahorel, though I’m sure he would never admit it. But I simply cannot imagine it of you.” 

“And you call yourself a poet,” Bossuet scoffed. “You must expand your imagination, Monsieur Prouvaire.” 

“Perhaps it is your imagination that is lacking,” Jehan retorted. “I suspect you have grown weary of being thought of as one half of a whole. You think, perhaps, you must prove that there is more to you than your best friend. But you’ve got it quite backwards. It is not a halving of the self, but a doubling. It is unquestionably a good, a wonderful thing, and you need not distance yourself from it.” 

“You’re making no sense at all,” Bossuet said cheerfully.

“I’m making _perfect_ sense, you’re just too drunk to understand.”

“Then I suppose we must leave it be. More wine?”

*

The sound of the church bells of Saint-Merri did not quite reach Bossuet’s garret, so he could only guess that it was leaning closer to morning than to night by the time everyone had gone. He found he didn’t feel much like sleeping. He prepared for bed slowly, taking in the silence. For all his claims to Courfeyrac and Combeferre that it was perfectly ordinary for him to take a room of his own when he had the means, in fact he hadn’t done so for almost the entire duration of their acquaintance— since he’d met Joly, frankly. It had been a long time since he’d had a room to himself. He wasn’t sure Jehan was entirely wrong in insisting he would dislike it. 

This was part of the reason that, when there came a soft rapping on the door, Bossuet thought for a moment that perhaps he was just imagining it. But then it came again, louder and more clearly. Bossuet hesitated—he’d been just about to get into bed after all—but realized that it was more than likely one of his friends, returning upon discovering that he was, in fact, too tipsy to get home. He went to the door. 

“I’m guessing right now,” he declared before he opened it. “It’s Courfeyrac, isn’t it.”

He opened the door.

It was Joly. 

“No. It’s me. …Hello,” Joly said uncertainly. 

“Hello,” Bossuet replied, more than a little surprised. “What on earth are you doing here? Come in, come in.” He stepped aside so that Joly could do so. “Did you walk all the way from across the river?” 

“It’s really not that far,” Joly said.

“Yes, but it’s the middle of the night!”

Joly shrugged and rubbed his cane against his nose. He seemed skittish and ill at ease—which, for all his eternal worrying about his health and the magnetic poles and the king, was not at all a state in which Bossuet was accustomed to seeing him.

“Won’t you sit?” he asked. There was no chair yet, so he led Joly over to the bed, and they sat down on the edge side by side. “You seem terribly out of sorts. What’s the matter?” 

“Oh, nothing, I… felt terribly guilty about missing your party,” Joly said. He did not seem to know what to do with his cane. He leaned it against the bed, then picked it up again, then placed it on the floor.

“So you decided it was better late than never?” Bossuet asked with a grin. “You must know that I don’t mind in the least. Combeferre said you were unwell.”

“Oh, yes, well— I _thought,_ but— I confess now it may simply have been the effects of a rather dusty lecture theatre.” Now lacking his cane, Joly settled for scratching the bridge of his nose with his knuckle. “I, um. Was it a nice party?”

“Joly,” Bossuet said seriously—or at least as serious as he could get without laughing at himself. “What on earth are you doing here? Did you and Musichetta have another row?” 

“Oh, no, no,” Joly said. “I haven’t seen her today, in fact. That is, I—I don’t know, I-- don’t know.”

Bossuet scooted closer and wrapped his arm around Joly’s shoulder. “My friend, I’m beginning to fear you really are unwell. Why are you here? What is going on?”

“I—” Joly cleared his throat in the direction of his shoes, then raised his eyes to meet Bossuets and said, very softly, “I missed you, is all.”

Then, after a moment of evident hesitation, Joly leaned clumsily forward and bridged the small space between them with a kiss. 

They had kissed before. It wasn’t that, that made Bossuet nearly start away in surprise. It was that they had never kissed, well, alone—never without Musichetta present, and never without having both imbibed a fair quantity of wine—which Bossuet, to be fair, had done but he could tell that Joly was perfectly sober. And that was the other difference, perhaps the greatest: for every time they had kissed, drunkenly, playfully, with Musichetta at their side, Joly had never been the one to begin it. 

“What—” Bossuet began, dazed, when they parted, but Joly leaned forward and kissed him once more, quickly, to silence him.

“I don’t know,” Joly said. “Please, don’t let’s talk about it because I don’t—I don’t know. I just—I missed you, I—”

“That’s alright, that’s alright,” Bossuet said gently, cutting him off. “We needn’t—we won’t say anything more. Just… did you come here to… that is, will you… stay?” 

Joly nodded, tentatively at first, then firmly. He offered his hand. And Bossuet took it. 

*

When Bossuet lay, afterwards, with his head resting on Joly’s chest, it felt backwards somehow—he wished he could see Joly’s face, wished he could be certain that the undeniable pleasure Joly had been expressing mere moments before hadn’t slipped, in the silence, back into his earlier state of anxious uncertainty—or worse, regret. 

He sat up, shifting so that he and Joly were, instead, lying side-by-side. Joly squinted at him, and Bossuet reached over to the windowsill (for he had no end table yet, but the window was perfectly placed) and retrieved Joly’s spectacles. 

“You promised,” Joly said warningly as he put them on. “You said we didn’t have to speak of it. I know _not_ speaking is a tremendous challenge for you, but you did promise.” 

Bossuet laughed. “And I keep my promises, as I have a tendency to lose everything else. But you understand, surely,” he continued, keeping his voice light. “I have no faith in my luck. If you regret—” He broke off and scrubbed his hand over his head. When he resumed, he spoke very quickly, as if only great speed could force the words to come out directly, “If you regret it, Joly, you must say so. I am inured to calamity— my evil genius is never far from my bed, particularly in the most intimate moments, God knows, but— there is nothing that will prepare me to lose your friendship. I do not need… though you have evidently guessed that I've long _wanted_ … but your friendship matters more. To lose it would be worse luck than even I could stand.” 

Joly cocked his head. “Fascinating. We seem to have enacted a transference, of a sort—my anxiety to you. Do you suppose I have in turn acquired your sanguinity? That would be terribly useful, it’s almost time for exams.” 

Bossuet, grinning, leaned in and kissed him. 

“You see,” he said. “This is why we never get anything done. When you wish to speak of serious matters, I beat you away with sarcasm, and when, for once, I make an effort— I suppose I should take it as a compliment. My lessons were well learned. I must reconsider my entire future now, perhaps I shall become a professor.”

“God forbid,” Joly said, running his hands through his hair, though this only seemed to make it more tousled than it had been before. Bossuet reached over to help smooth it down, and Joly leaned into his touch. 

Maybe it was best, Bossuet thought as Joly’s head drooped against his shoulder—best not to speak of it. For he didn’t know, really, what he would say. No. He knew what he felt. He knew what other people would say. But he didn’t know how he could possibly say it.

“I really have corrupted you,” Joly said softly. “You’re fretting about something, I can feel it. You have this strange, concerned look on your face.” 

“I’m not, and I don’t. –well, I may,” he conceded. “I can’t see my own face. But really, I’m not. It’s just—as you said. I find my way with words. I’m feeling rather lost without them, I must confess.” 

“Do not be. The way is quite direct, in fact,” Joly said. “We shall do between us what the Friends of the ABC have not yet managed. We shall not discuss. We shall not theorize. We shall not identify. We shall simply—do. We shall continue friends, as we have always been.”

“As we have always been,” Bossuet echoed evenly. 

“As… as we are right now.” 

“Right,” Bossuet said (he had an awful feeling that this sensation in his chest was something suspiciously and dangerously similar to hope--). And true to his word (albeit belatedly) he said nothing more.


	2. Chapter 2

“Well,” Musichetta said. “That roof isn’t going to do much good when these clouds break.”

They all looked dubiously upwards. Joly scratched his nose with his cane; Musichetta tapped her parasol against the floor. Bossuet hid a smile and shoved his hands into his pockets.

“Better to test its effectiveness sooner rather than later,” he said cheerfully. “I’ve been collecting little cups and jars just for this purpose. Indeed, I think the final effect will be quite calming.”

“Like dozens of small, tranquil ponds,” Musichetta offered. 

“Quite,” Bossuet agreed. 

“You’re both mad,” Joly said. “Let’s get out of here before the rain starts and go back to mine, where it’s warm and dry.”

“What, go already? This morning you were singing the praises of Lesgle’s new place. It was why I insisted we come by,” she added, turning to Bossuet. “I was under the impression that Joly was entirely taken with it. He just couldn’t get enough. He had to stay all night.” 

Joly’s nose-rubbing suddenly took on a rather panicked air, and Bossuet grinned, but could feel the tips of his ears going red. He wasn’t sure what he had to be embarrassed about, precisely— it was less shame, he decided, than the feeling of being caught out, the familiar knowing look in Musichetta’s dark eyes, the one that said, _you really thought you could keep something from me?_

“Yes,” he said. “We stayed up all night discussing architecture.” 

“Oh, architecture,” she said, twirling her parasol thoughtfully. “It is a subject I have always wished to know more about.”

“You know perfectly well we know nothing about it either,” Joly said. He did not blush easily in any circumstances, but the mix of flustered embarrassment in his expression was perfectly eloquent. “Don’t let’s be silly, let’s just say what we mean for once. Musichetta— if you’re angry—”

“Angry?” she echoed, looking genuinely surprised. “What on earth are you talking about, my dear?” 

“When…” He paused, seeming to search for the right words. “When we had that, that row a few months ago, it was… on this subject…” Musichetta shook her head, uncomprehending. To judge by Joly’s face, the prospect of having to elaborate any further caused him physical pain. “The, the subject of— of Bossuet and I, and our, um—”

“Hold on,” Bossuet said suddenly, glancing upwards. Joly and Musichetta both looked to him, she with some irritation, he with profound relief. Bossuet stuck out a hand, palm up, and this confirmed his suspicions. “—it’s started to rain.” 

“The cups, then!” Musichetta cried, tossing her parasol aside. 

The cups— more specifically, two cracked tea cups, three jam jars, a wine glass with its stem broken off, and four or five sweets tins— were distributed amongst them, and they huddled together at the edge of the room, each rushing forward when a leak was spotted. 

“Ah,” Bossuet said after a few minutes of this. “Now I see why the bed was in the other corner when I arrived.” 

There was, indeed, one corner that was distinctly less damp than the others, and it was there they shifted the bed. Musichetta retrieved her parasol, opened it, and hooked it behind the headboard so that it created a little canopy under which she settled herself. When the gentlemen did not join her, she looked expectantly up at them.

“Well?”

Joly and Bossuet exchanged a look.

“Fine, suit yourselves,” she said with a shrug. She settled herself more comfortably on the bed, in the process, apparently accidentally, twitching her skirt up above her ankles. This seemed to Bossuet not very accidental at all. “It’s rather comfortable. And you’re entirely right, dear Lesgle, the effect of the cups is quite musical. I particularly like the tins.”

“I’m glad you like the tins. Musichetta, I am very confused.” 

“Well, that’s nothing new,” she said. “How may I help?” 

“Well— and I do not presume to speak for Joly here—”

“No, speak for me, please.”

“—right. Well.” A new leak seemed to have formed directly over Bossuet’s head. He side-stepped it, then resumed. “Joly and I had rather gotten the impression, based on the previously-mentioned row, that the prospect of he and I, er, passing a night together was not an idea altogether to your taste. We rather imagined you would be angry when you learned of it. And now we rather fear you are presently luring us into some kind of trap.” 

Musichetta looked affronted. Bossuet wondered if he should have made Joly do the talking.

“What on earth do you take me for? A _trap?_ ” She ducked out from underneath the parasol and stood. She took their hands, one of Joly’s in her right, one of Bossuet’s in her left. Her hands, Bossuet reflected, were so very small, and very white. “What I was angry about— and now I am quite regretting having forgiven you, as it’s clear you did not understand at all what you were apologizing for— what I was angry about was being used as, as some kind of _prop_ to mask your own love-making, some pretense of relative respectability. However—” She tugged them both closer. Joly stumbled. “If you two have realized that you have no need of me for that— but would, perhaps, like to _invite_ me, well… we did have a bit of fun, the three of us, didn’t we?” 

“We did,” Bossuet agreed solemnly. 

“You see,” Joly said. “This is why we should have gone back to mine. The bed is bigger.”

“Oh,” Musichetta said, ducking back beneath her makeshift canopy. “I daresay we’ll make do.” 

*

They could just barely fit side-by-side on the bed, if they squeezed together— though this was no hardship for them, of course. Bossuet found himself staring up at Musichetta’s parasol, Joly on his right, Musichetta on Joly’s right, the rhythmic tapping of rain dripping onto it and into the cups nearly lulling him to sleep. He felt warm and content, in a way he did not entirely trust to last. 

“It makes one think of the king,” Joly said suddenly.

“Yes, that’s who I was imagining Musichetta was, too!” Bossuet cried, and Musichetta tried to reach across to smack him, but mostly ended up hitting Joly. 

“Not like that,” Joly said. “The idea that— well, my father fought for Bonaparte, but he was quite content to change his tune after the restoration. The king is anointed by God and all that— one is taught, isn’t one, that it is natural for some men to be ruled by others. For some men to be great and others miserable. But we, whatever our fathers taught us, have come to see that that is untrue.” 

“I don’t like talking about politics in--,” Bossuet began. 

“Yes, that’s right,” Musichetta said over top of him. “And so?”

“Well it just…” Joly was still staring up at the parasol. Bossuet suspected he was using his present lack of spectacles (they had definitely been tossed somewhere, though Bossuet couldn’t quite recall where) as an excuse not to have to look at either of them. “It makes one wonder what else has been put forward as _natural_ , when in fact it’s nothing of the kind.” 

“I think,” Bossuet said in an exaggerated whisper, sitting up and leaning across Joly to Musichetta, “That this means we have a standing invitation.” 

She laughed and kissed Bossuet’s cheek—then kissed Joly’s, too, for good measure. Then she lay back down, smiling faintly, and joined Joly in gazing up at the parasol. Bossuet instead looked at them, lying side by side. Her eyes were big and dark, they seemed almost black. Fortune-teller’s eyes, Joly called them, and Bossuet suspected this was less for their striking color than for the distinct feeling you got whilst gazing into them that she knew something you did not. She, unlike either of them, was from the north: she had come to Paris from Alsace, Bossuet recalled, and once, tipsy and giggling, she had told them that her real name was Myriam. 

“If you were with child—”

“God forbid!” she burst out instantly. 

“God forbid,” Bossuet echoed dutifully. “But if you were… which of us would marry you?” 

“Me, obviously,” Joly said, with no less hesitation than Musichetta’s outburst a moment before. “No offense, dear eagle, but I’m the only one of us with any money.” 

“This is true,” Bossuet said. “But, you also have a family who may, perhaps, be deeply shocked by your decision. I have no such obstacles. Plus, if a dark-haired child should be born to Musichetta and me, then it will be assumed to take after its mother. But if a red-haired child should be born to the two of you— what would the neighbors think?” 

“He makes a very good point, my dear,” Musichetta said, patting Joly comfortingly on the chest. “I know we are all devoted to avoiding scandal at any cost.”

“Utterly,” Joly agreed. “It is my only care.” 

“Not your only care, surely,” Bossuet said. “Avoiding scandal, the look of your tongue, and the cut of your coat.”

“Yes, it’s true. But those three are the only things. I will admit no more, I haven’t the time.” 

“Where does that leave us, Lesgle?” Musichetta asked. 

“Well, one cannot avoid scandal if there’s no scandal present to avoid.” 

“Well reasoned,” she said. “Perhaps you shall make a lawyer after all.” 

Bossuet laughed. “To quote a dear friend— God forbid.” 

“I think the rain has stopped,” Joly said. 

They all fell silent to listen. The pace of the dripping seemed to have decreased. Joly sat up, and Musichetta and Bossuet followed suit. Joly slid off the bed in pursuit of his spectacles, and Musichetta, despairing, it seemed, of ever locating her discarded hairpins, began wrestling her dark curls into a fat braid. 

“You look dazed, my dear,” Musichetta said. Both her hands were occupied with her hair, so she nudged Bossuet with her foot instead. He grinned. 

“This looks suspiciously like good luck,” he said. “I’m wondering how long it can last.”

“Keep an eye to the roof, then,” she said, nodding towards it. “That thing cannot possibly last the summer.”


	3. Chapter 3

Joly ran into Courfeyrac near the Sorbonne. Or, more accurately, he ran into the three grisettes that Courfeyrac was flirting with, all of whom Joly would have been perfectly happy to continue on and ignore, had he not happened to pass just as Courfeyrac deployed Joly’s least favorite of all of Courfeyrac’s seduction techniques.

"You know," Courfeyrac said, taking the opportunity to reach for one of the girls' hands. Even from this preamble, Joly knew what was coming. "My mother was a fortune-teller."

So Joly hovered, irritatingly, just on the periphery of the little cluster, until one of the girls noticed him and with a giggled, ‘Your friend is waiting,’ led her party away. Courfeyrac watched them retreat, then shot Joly a glare.

“What on earth did you do that for?” he demanded, folding his arms over his chest. “You’re lucky in love at the moment, let other people have a chance.”

“You know I hate that line of yours.”

“Oh.” A grin spread across Courfeyrac’s face. “Yes, I know you do. But it's a terribly convenient means of getting the question of heritage out of the way. For-- as I'm sure you can attest-- they always ask sooner or later, and it’s very often in bed. And let me assure you, there is absolutely nothing that can ruin the moment faster than being forced to think about one’s mother.” 

“Fair, but—”

“But nothing,” Courfeyrac said, throwing his arm around Joly’s shoulders. “Come, walk me home, it has been too long since we talked. People will think and say what they like, you know that, and we shall parade down the street and dare them to do so.”

Joly always noticed the glances he and Courfeyrac got when they walked together, and not simply because they were both always impeccably dressed. Joly found that generally he could go about his life without attracting much attention, and this was the way he liked it, but Courfeyrac’s otherness was so ostentatious— _everything_ about Courfeyrac was ostentatious, really, but not least his dark skin, his reddish curls, his green eyes— that it seemed to cast Joly’s own difference into relief. 

“I just hate that you encourage it,” he muttered. 

“I must have someone to entertain on a summer evening as lovely as this one seems poised to be, and if a silly story impresses a silly girl, well— you’ve got the cleverest grisette in Paris for yourself, and Irma Boissy isn’t speaking to me at the moment.” It was plain that nothing much was going to dampen Courfeyrac’s good mood, and Joly felt his irritation fading in spite of himself. “Now, tell me about where you stand with Musichetta. More to the point, tell me about where you stand with Bossuet.” 

“How does everyone _know?”_

Courfeyrac laughed. “We’re all terribly perceptive, surely you’ve noticed. Also, he told me. About time, too. There’s nothing more depressing than watching a man in love.”

Joly blinked. He almost stopped walking, but Courfeyrac’s sprightly gait and arm around his shoulder propelled him along. “—love?” 

Courfeyrac did stop. He looked at Joly closely, then said, “I can’t tell if you’re playing coy because we’re in public, or if I’ve made a terrible blunder.” 

“…love?” 

A moment of silence passed between them. Joly realized that the unfamiliar expression he saw briefly pass over Courfeyrac’s face was embarrassment. Courfeyrac cleared his throat.

“—did you know my mother was a fortune-teller?” 

*

“Courfeyrac thinks Bossuet is in love with me,” Joly said without preamble when he arrived at Musichetta’s room. She was threading a needle and didn’t look up.

“Yes, very likely,” she said. “Surely I told you I have work to do today?”

“You did, but— he’s in _love_ with me?”

Realizing Joly was not to be so easily deterred, Musichetta sighed and set her sewing aside. “Aren’t you in love with me?”

“Yes,” he replied at once. “But that’s completely different.” 

“Not to be crass, but— you’ve already fucked him, my dear, surely love is the least objectionable aspect?” 

“The National Constituent Assembly saw no need for laws against sodomy,” Joly said, fully recognizing that this was not exactly an answer. “Certainly the government should not legislate a man’s conscience, but even so, in such a context one hardly thinks of— of love.” 

“Are you in love with me?” 

Joly adjusted his spectacles, confused. “Didn’t you just ask that? Yes, of course I am.” 

“There’s nothing _of course_ about it,” she said. “To plenty of men— most men, the men I knew before you— a girl like me is for gifts and flattery and sex. And you say you love her, but not really, just for fun, until it gets boring. And that’s no trouble to me, of course, as long as I’m thinking the same things. But if you love me— if you went to your friends and you said you loved me, and they laughed and said that such a person, such a context is meant for sex, not love—”

“Well, they wouldn’t be my friends for long,” Joly said indignantly. Musichetta laughed and rolled her eyes.

“That’s not what I mean and you know it.” 

“I…” Joly began, but then fell silent. He looked at his hands, folded in his lap. He flicked a stray thread off of one of his gloves and remembered the way a shopkeeper had looked as he and Courfeyrac passed, Courfeyrac holding forth about something, gesturing extravagantly, not noticing (it seemed) at all. (Why was it he seemed to spend his life noticing things, fearing things, that no one else appeared to see or fear?) Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Musichetta reach for her sewing once more. 

“Do you love me?” he asked suddenly. She stopped and raised her eyes from the needle to look at him. “You say that other men didn’t mean it when they said they loved you. Do you believe that I do? And do you love me?”

“Oh, well.” She was pursing her lips in that way she did when she was trying not to smile. “I do now.” 

* 

It was growing late and dark, and Joly was just about to give up waiting when he saw Bossuet making his way down the street. Joly hurried to intercept him before he could go inside, and Bossuet looked surprised at the sight of him, surprised and gratified, and Joly found himself looking close, trying to read something besides good cheer in his best friend’s eyes.

“You’ve got dirt on your face,” Joly said. Bossuet reached up and rubbed his cheek with the back of his hand, missing the spot entirely.

“I was with Feuilly,” he said. “Talking to some masons. We ended up having to beat a quick retreat and duck into an alley or two on the way back.”

“I saw Courfeyrac earlier.”

“Oh, he and Irma have had some terrible falling out. Prouvaire saw it all, he said it was entirely shocking and he couldn’t possibly tell me a thing about it until he’d had time to turn it into a dramatic poem.” Bossuet grinned. “Now, would you like to come up? It’s a lovely night, I grant, but I’d rather like to wash my face.” 

Joly reached out and swiped at the smudge on Bossuet’s cheek with his thumb. He let his hand rest there a moment and he was sure that something did _change_ in Bossuet’s expression, though he couldn’t say what or how, but something certainly happened— he knew that face so well now. When Joly didn’t move his hand, Bossuet ducked casually aside, still smiling.

“How long do you intend to stay here?” Joly asked, looking up at the building behind them, at the narrow window at the very top that he knew was Bossuet’s. 

“Oh, through the summer. Never fear, once the first cold autumn evenings come, you shan’t be able to dislodge me from your hearth.” He grinned and stuffed his hands into his pockets, following Joly’s gaze up to the top window. “Why do you ask?” 

“Why did you move out?”

This question took Bossuet by surprise, but he recovered smoothly. “As I’ve said, when I can pay a debt—”

“Oh, please, don’t speak of _debt_ ,” Joly burst out. “How can we possibly tally what we owe to each other? You have given me as much and more than the value of a spare mattress, I cannot believe that you really think yourself in my debt.” 

“No,” he said slowly. “I do not.” 

“Well, so,” Joly said, pleased to have won the point. But this, he realized, was not an answer. 

“Is that what you came all the way over here to ask?” Bossuet laughed. “No, I don’t feel indebted to you. I flatter myself that good friendship is worth room and board.”

“No, of course that’s not why.” But he could elaborate no further, because he realized then he had no idea why. To _know_ , he would have said, but he was no longer sure what, exactly, he wanted to know. He wanted, he thought, to know how Courfeyrac never noticed other people staring, why he and Musichetta could both say the word love and it seemed like somehow she was talking about a different thing with the same name, why he had come here and waited in the growing dark, why for the first time in his scientifically-minded (perhaps, he could concede, slightly hypochondriacal) life he could know that something was happening to him and somehow not want to understand why.

“Right,” Bossuet said when it became clear that Joly had no answer. “Well, then. If you want to keep standing around in the street, by all means, but if you want to come up—”

“Yes,” Joly said.

(But, he thought, but why didn't that seem like an answer?)


	4. Chapter 4

September proved beautiful, but it was getting cold around the edges and dark in the evenings. As Bossuet loitered outside of the shop where Musichetta worked, he performed idle mental calculations— the cost of a new coat, the amount of his debts to cafés and friends, fees for lectures, money he had vague hope of coming into thanks to one relation or another. He happily pushed these thoughts aside when Musichetta stepped outside at last.

“May I have the honor of escorting you home, mademoiselle?” he asked, offering an arm. Though she seemed surprised to see him, she took it with a smile, pulling her shawl closer about her shoulders.

“And where is home today?” she asked. “Yours, mine, or Joly’s?”

“Oh, haven’t you heard? I’ve given up my little garret at last. You may count the summer officially ended.”

“I confess I am a little sorry for it,” she said. “You and I were practically neighbors, it was terribly convenient. But Joly’s rooms are rather nicer. Anyway, that still leaves us with two choices.” 

“Wherever you would prefer, good lady,” Bossuet replied. “Joly is presently in a frenzy preparing to go south for his brother’s wedding…”

“Oh, I’d entirely forgotten that!” She tilted her head thoughtfully. “So you and I shall be alone.” 

“I had no idea the entirety of Paris planned to go with him.”

“Oh, you know what I mean,” she said, laughing as she gave his arm a playful smack. 

“I do.” He hesitated for an moment, then continued, lightly, “You mustn’t feel you are required to keep me company while Joly is away. And if you would prefer to spend the week at his, I can happily find somewhere else to go.” 

“How uncharacteristically direct of you,” she said. “You must be truly terrified of irritating me. I’m actually rather flattered.” 

“We have never spent time alone together,” Bossuet pointed out. This was at least largely true-- the occasions on which they had found themselves alone, it was always in company, at salons or parties. But they had never been in private, not without Joly. 

“Then I am glad we shall have a chance to amend that,” she said. Her voice was firm, but her dark eyes glinted playfully. “I quite like you, Lesgle de Meaux. I do hope you know that.”

“Well, I didn’t want to flatter myself. But if I may be so bold, Mademoiselle Myriam—may I call you that?”

“I don’t know, may I call you David?”

“—if I may be so bold, Mademoiselle Musichetta, I think we make a rather good team. I think that between the two of us, we provide precisely the sort of bad influence Monsieur Joly requires.” 

She laughed, and Bossuet did too, and when it faded they walked in silence for a few moments. Smiling, she shook her head and said, half to herself, “I’ve no idea why the two of you insist on making things so difficult. It is, I find, the plague of very clever boys.” 

“And what is the plague of very clever girls?” he asked. 

“Why, the clever boys, of course. Now.” She stopped. “We have wasted all this time and have not yet decided where we are going. We must turn here for either mine or Joly’s.”

“Well, as I said, Joly is hard at work packing up. So we may either go make nuisances of ourselves there, or politely and discreetly absent ourselves so he may fret in peace about what to wear to return to the respectable, royalist embrace of Mère and Père Joly. I told him to be sure to pack his Phrygian cap and he threw a shoe at me.” 

“In that case, it seems clear to me that there is only one course for caring friends to take.” 

*

“You must wear the violet one to the wedding itself,” Musichetta said, holding up the waistcoat in question. She fingered the buttons thoughtfully, then held it up to her own chest. “Do you think this color suits me?” 

“Oh yes, far better than Joly,” Bossuet said. He was busy playing with the lid of a hatbox. “Does one bring spare hats when travelling? I don’t know if I’ve ever owned more than one hat at a time.” 

“That’s disgraceful,” Musichetta sniffed. “How can your friends stand to be seen with you?”

“They can’t,” Bossuet replied cheerfully. “Courfeyrac and Bahorel have firmly informed me that until I acquire a new coat, they will only venture out with me after dark.” 

“Well really, my dear, once a coat has seen the reign of two kings…”

“I recognize no king,” Bossuet said loftily. “By this argument, I need never replace my coat, which suits well with my finances. I thank you, Musichetta, for this very helpful advice.”

“Will you both just shut up?” Joly cried, throwing up his hands. Settled in the midst of an apparent explosion of shirts, he was looking quite miserable. Bossuet and Musichetta exchanged guilty, grinning glances, and Musichetta swooped down to kiss Joly’s cheek. 

“We’re terribly sorry, my dear,” she said. “We will go, if you want us to.” 

“No, I don’t want you to leave, I’m sorry. I just— don’t want to go and spend a week being teased by my brothers like I’m still a little boy and making up polite lies about how I spend my time in Paris—” He crumpled up the shirt he was holding and tossed it aside. “I realize I shouldn’t complain.” 

“Don’t be foolish, complain away,” Bossuet said, waving a hand airily. “What are friends for, after all?” 

“I wish you could come with me,” he said. Musichetta and Bossuet’s eyes met again, and they both burst out laughing.

“Oh, can you _imagine?_ ” she gasped. “I can see it now: Mama, Papa, this is Lesgle, his father was a very respectable postmaster, but he’s gambled away his inheritance—”

“It was speculation, not gambling, please.”

“—and now he plots the overthrow of the state and intermittently studies law.” 

“And this is Musichetta,’” Bossuet jumped in with a grin. “Well, one of her former lovers nicknamed her that, anyway— she’s a seamstress— oh, no, she won’t be joining us at church, she’s not Catholic—” 

“They both live with me…” 

They had dissolved into absolute fits of laughter, but Joly just smiled. 

“I suppose there aren’t enough polite lies in the world to encompass the two of you,” he said. 

“Don’t despair,” Musichetta said, draping her arms about Joly’s neck. “If I took you home to Alsace, my mother would find you perfectly objectionable, too. A half-Egyptian republican? Appalling.” 

“Thank goodness,” Joly said. “I wouldn’t know what to make of a world in which I am considered a sterling example of bourgeois respectability.”

“A world where you are considered perfectly ordinary?” Bossuet mused. “I should think that would be a rather interesting one.” 

“Oh, come that’s— that’s not fair—” Joly protested as Musichetta began loosening his cravat in order to drop a line of kisses down his neck. “I have to— I have to pack up—”

“ _Now_ you sound respectable.”

“Oh! There’s an insult!” Bossuet cried. “Joly, you must defend your honor— here, hit her with this glove— or, yes, that works equally well… shall I help you with those buttons…?” 

*

“Well, that got terribly silly,” Joly said. 

“That color does suit you better though,” Bossuet said. He was sitting inside Joly’s travelling trunk, his knees hitched up over the side. 

“Mmm, yes,” Musichetta said, smoothing down the front of the violet waistcoat. That and one of Joly’s shirts were the extent of her new outfit, which she was examining quite proudly in Joly’s mirror. “Though I must say, the two of you make it very difficult to ever have a complete conversation.” 

“I beg your pardon? That was entirely your fault.” Joly tried to begin collecting some of the scattered shirts, but Bossuet made an indignant sort of noise of protest and so Joly, without too much reluctance, tossed aside the shirts and climbed into the trunk. Musichetta, humming, put on one of Joly’s top hats and began stuffing her hair up underneath it. 

“I do wish you could come,” Joly said softly. He leaned his head against Bossuet’s shoulder, and Bossuet slipped his hand into Joly’s.

“I could, if you wanted,” Bossuet said. “I could borrow a new coat. I’m perfectly capable of being entirely frivolous and inoffensive, your silly lawyer friend from Paris with the bad puns.” 

“I know you could, of course,” Joly replied. “Just as I will be able to be their younger brother who flirts badly and spends too much money on clothes and is far too concerned with miasmas and magnets to trouble himself with the workings of the world. It seems radical politics turn one into a terribly good liar. But I don’t know if I could lie about you.” He paused. “I don’t want to have to lie about you.” 

(In two years they had learned to read each other like books; a tone, a gesture, a glance. Bossuet, adept with languages, had become fluent in Joly. So took this as it was meant, understood it for the confession it was, and knew that there was no need to respond.)

“It frightens me when you two go quiet,” Musichetta called from in front of the mirror. “I’m sure it means you’re plotting something.” 

“Oh, only revolution,” Bossuet replied, and Joly added, “As ever.”


End file.
